


If I forget thee, O Jerusalem

by xenowlsome



Category: Ivanhoe, Ivanhoe - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon Jewish Character, F/M, Middle Ages, Missing Scene, at least I wrote with that in mind, do not copy to another site, forgive my flowery language, implied PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:00:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24821227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xenowlsome/pseuds/xenowlsome
Summary: "What is it like?""What?""Jerusalem."
Relationships: Brian de Bois-Guilbert/Rebecca of York
Comments: 8
Kudos: 15





	If I forget thee, O Jerusalem

**Author's Note:**

> Translation into Russian (mine): <https://ficbook.net/readfic/10095795>

"What is it like?"  
"What?"  
"Jerusalem."

The Templar half-closed his eyes, as if trying to recall the image of the city to his mind. For a moment, his face was still as a mask, void of its usual passions.  
"It is like any city in Palestine. Full of sand, loud, unbearably hot in the summer." Bois-Guilbert opened his eyes again, but his gaze was far away still. "It is beautiful beyond words."

Rebecca looked out over the fields and woods surrounding the preceptory, suddenly unable to bear the sight of him, so deep in a memory of a city she would never see. It was painfully unfair, even more so than her current predicament, that this unbelieving gentile had once walked the streets of _their_ city as if he'd owned it. That the order he was part of had been founded upon the very stones of her people's holiest place.  
  
She heard the knight chuckle. "Your face would cower a storm now. Do you think me so undeserving of the city your people _used_ to hold, Rebecca?"  
She couldn't help but wince at the jab, and his smile waned. "Forgive me, that was cruel to say. God knows, the Jews are far from the only ones to lose it..."

"Did it mean anything to you, to lose it? You do not believe the preachings of Christianity; what does one city matter?" _Why do you speak of it with such longing? You, who holds nothing sacred?_

"Of course it did!" Bois-Guilbert was on his feet and pacing in an instant. "Even if you discount- " His eyes glazed over, and the almost-violent agitation left him at once. He suddenly looked wistful, and gaunt, and very tired. "Even if you do not accept the right of the conqueror... I have spent all my life spilling my blood for this land, for this city." His dark eyes met hers. "It has to mean something."

"This is what I keep thinking about." Rebecca fixed her gaze on the floor, half-wishing for the words to stop. "Even if- even when, in five hundred, in a thousand years, we take our homeland back - there's too much memory there. Too many wanted to own it, too many tried to conquer it, too many will try again. Will there be anything left, in the end - for anyone?" _For us, the wandering children of Israel?_

_There will not be another Nehemyah nor another Miriam in our lifetime, and it will not be you. Truly, it is past time for you to leave such games._

He was avoiding her gaze too, now. "I do not know, Rebecca. Sometimes it does seem pointless." He sighed. "What would it cost for all to just leave the place alone?"

"What would it cost?" Her vision was blurring; she should not cry in front of him, should not show weakness - besides, it was an old hurt, an inherited hurt, it should have been dulled by now- "Hope, however faint, that that there will be a time when we will come together in the land of our fathers, not dependent upon the goodwill of foreign kings, not prosecuted- " _Why am I telling him this, him who is as much our enemy as the rest of them, if not more so?_

"I would have thought..." Brian was standing awkwardly halfway to her, as if he did not know what to do with a woman in tears, "I would have thought that never having something, even in longing, is easier to bear than having and losing it."

"But we _had_ it. We _built_ it."

"It is an awful long memory to have." He smiled without mirth. "I've always wondered if it is a blessing or a curse."


End file.
